Awaken Resilience: Where the Clinical Meets the Creative

Converging Photography and Neuroscience to Rewire the Brain

Friday, January 29, 2027 | 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM | Frisco, TX

Reserve Your Seat. Register Here.

A Continuing Education Course for Mental Health Professionals

Are your clients struggling with:

• Seeing themselves through what they’ve survived instead of who they are now?

• Doing meaningful inner work but still being held back by old narratives?

• Self-doubt resurfacing when they try to step into new dreams or seasons?

• Feeling capable on the outside but uncertain on the inside?

• Losing connection to their sense of worth after trauma, illness, or major life change?

If so, you’re not alone, and neither are they.

You’ll leave with practiced, neuroscience-informed tools that help your clients integrate the work they’ve already done and begin to see themselves differently.

You’ve helped clients do the deep inner work.

So why do so many of them still feel stuck?

Survival reshapes the brain. Old narratives can remain in place long after they’re no longer true. Even after years of therapy, insight alone often isn’t enough.

Clients can understand their story… and still struggle to see themselves differently.

What if the brain needed more than insight to change what it believes is true?

This course explores what happens when the brain is given something new to reference.

Hosted by the FIORIA Institute, this in-person CEU training introduces a neuroscience-informed approach to identity restoration through visual narrative. Drawing from over two decades of developing the FIORIA Photography Method, we’ll share how music, movement, personal narrative, and intentional visual anchors can support neural-level change in ways cognitive insight alone cannot.

This is not therapy.
And it’s far more than photography.

It’s a structured, multi-sensory experience designed to help the brain recognize truth at a deeper level.

While the FIORIA team does not provide psychotherapy, our work has been developed in collaboration with renowned neuroscientists and licensed therapists who share a common belief: people deserve to feel joyful and free, no longer defined by what they survived. Our goal is to equip mental health professionals with tools that help clients not just understand their strength, but see it, anchor it, and integrate it into everyday life.

To see what this experience looks like in practice, including client stories and visual outcomes, explore the Rising Phoenix Experience: https://fioria.us

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• How to give the brain something new to reference using multi-sensory exercises clients can repeat on their own

• Real Brain Gauge data from a Rising Phoenix case study participant, and how we’re measuring cognitive shifts

• Visual techniques that help clients see who they are now, not who they were in survival

• Hands-on exercises you’ll try yourself, including a childhood photo reflection and movement and music-based practices that support shifts beyond cognitive insight alone

• A walk-through of the FIORIA Photography Method with real client stories and results

• A look at our one-year research protocol, which grew out of our 21-day pilot study, with Brain Gauge tracked across the year alongside mood logs and clinician observation

• How to refer a client to the Rising Phoenix Experience, and how we partner with therapists

WHO’S LEADING THE EXPERIENCE

This course is led by Me Ra Koh and Brian Tausend, co-founders of FIORIA and FIORIA Institute.

For more than two decades, they have developed a photography-based process that supports healing and identity restoration. Over the last six years, they have deepened and refined this work through collaborating with neuroscientists and therapists to structure the method around how the brain rewires and integrates new self-perception.

Me Ra has spoken nationally for more than two decades on inner healing and sexual assault recovery, including to audiences of up to 20,000, and is a Random House author. Together, they have created a transformative experience that draws clients from across the country, empowering them to visually reclaim their resilience and step into their greatness.

This event is hosted through the FIORIA Institute, the nonprofit advancing this research. Learn more here: https://fioriainstitute.org/

WHAT THERAPISTS TOLD US AFTERWARD

"How on board I felt at the end, because I am often skeptical!"

-Molly, Nikao Counseling

"I've never heard of anything like this before. I loved every aspect of what y'all are doing…Working with clients in EMDR, we go down into the deep, dark depths of their trauma. What y'all do is taking it above and beyond that. That positive cognition actually becomes a celebration. Something to celebrate and empower."
— Kathy, LPC, EMDR-certified

"I was hesitant to dive into this CE, but I'm so thankful I did. It's shown me what's possible for our work in the room and for my clients outside the therapy space. Learning how to use imagery, storytelling, and movement has me questioning how to bring creativity into the process. It has grown me. It has stretched me. It has made me feel like a deeper, more intentional clinician."
— Noel, LPC

"I want my clients to see themselves as I do."
— Julie, LPC

"The verified neurological results surprised me most."
— Local Therapist, LPC

"I love hearing the data and thinking of how this could really help specific clients. I also loved the laughter!"

-Annie, Owner of Mend Counseling

"The testimonials and the pictures. You can visually see them embracing their true selves."

-Ann, Nikao Counseling

"The depth of change, and how the impact can be lasting."

-Brylee, Mend Counseling

"Helpful tools and techniques to refer clients to you…and what a loving way to help overcome stuck areas or negative self."

-Audrey, Nikao Counseling

DETAILS & REGISTERATION

Date: Friday, January 29, 2027

Time: 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM

Where: FIORIA Studio, 10400 Frisco St. Unit 303, Frisco, TX 75033

Format: 3.5 hours in person, including 3 instructional hours. Interactive exercises, client testimonials, visual case examples, and live Q&A.

CE credit: This course offers 3 instructional hours. A Certificate of Completion will be provided.

Therapist-ready tools: You’ll leave with neuroscience-informed exercises you can integrate into sessions immediately.

Suggested contribution: $35 per person, or $70 if you’d like to sponsor someone else to attend.

Registration covers the CEU itself: your CE certificate, breakfast, coffee, charcuterie lunch, materials, and studio space. Every dollar beyond that directly supports the FIORIA Institute’s longitudinal case studies, ongoing neurocognitive research, and the next round of participants. Thank you for being part of what we’re building.

Learn more about the nonprofit here: https://fioriainstitute.org/

📌 Register by Friday, January 15, 2027.

HOSTING AWAKEN RESILIENCE FOR YOUR PRACTICE

Since our first CEU in May 2026, the most consistent feedback we’ve heard from therapists is that they wished it was longer. They loved the experience so much they didn’t want it to end.

That feedback shaped what came next. In October, we hosted a private Awaken Resilience CEU for two DFW practices, Mend Counseling and Nikao Counseling. The private format allowed two practices to come together as a shared clinical community, deepen their conversations with peers who share their populations and values, and experience the CEU as a small retreat rather than a large event.

We can host up to 35 therapists per private CEU, which gives real flexibility. Smaller practices often combine forces with another practice they’re close with. Larger practices can bring their whole team on their own. Either way, the format is designed to feel intimate: enough room for meaningful conversation, small enough that everyone benefits from experiential exercises and individual attention.

If you’re a practice owner or clinical director wondering whether Awaken Resilience could be a fit for your team, we’d love to explore it with you.

Email Me Ra at mera@fioria.us to start the conversation.

Still We Rise.